With the development of communication technology, telecommunication service is on its way shifting to comprehensive information service in which fixed service is integrated with mobile service and voice application is combined with internet application. The wireless broadband network terminal integrated with voice and/or data communication service will generate great value.
There is stronger need than ever before for mobile office. Consumers always pursue voice communication and access to internet anywhere (such as places they often visit, for example airport, hotel, leisure plaza, coffee house, subway and suburb park) and anytime without any geographical limitation.
Two major technical solutions are employed currently for meeting the above needs. One solution involves use of palmtop (PDA) or smart phone. The other solution relates to combination of the mobile phone with a portable computer.
Imbedded software may be used to incorporate function of PDA into the mobile phone so as to perform personal information management such as management of contact persons, tasks, schedule, note and so on. In addition, under condition of narrow bandwidth network, internet applications concerning processing of word and small-sized pictures such as browsing websites and receiving and sending emails can be realized. However, the basic framework of the PDA phone is different from X86-featured framework of a general computer and suffers from many disadvantages some of which may include low hardware configuration, unchangeable software curing, great difference of standards, bad interchangeability, bad extendibility and complexity of operation. When applied in environment of broadband mobile internet, the above disadvantages will become the major bottleneck of the downloading speed and network application.
In countries where 3 G/3.5 G communication techniques are available, many people currently employ the mobile solution in which a general notebook computer is combined with a cell phone. In other words, the cell phone is used to implement voice communication and PIM management, while the notebook computer is employed to realize wideband internet access and mobile office computation. The main shortcomings of the above solution lie in its inconvenience of transportation due to large size, necessity of two separate power supplies, expansive purchase and usage cost, difficulty in comprehensive management of voice and data service, as well as necessity of frequent update.